1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technology to automatically extract the characteristic of a moving object, such as a human being, animal, article, etc., and in particular, to an apparatus and method for extracting the characteristic, such as a moving pattern, preference, etc., of a moving object by storing and collecting the visit history and visit situations of locations as visit history data and analyzing the visit history data in a case where a moving object moves in a space and visits a certain location.
2. Description of the Related Art
The location of a moving object can be measured with the following methods.
(1) In radio cut navigation a global positioning system (GPS) or a differential GPS (D-GPS) using radio waves transmitted from an artificial satellite is utilized.
(2) In dead reckoning navigation the direction and distance are calculated utilizing both a directional sensor, such as a gyro, etc., and a speed sensor.
(3) A hybrid method combines navigation (1) and (2).
(4) A method in which an apparatus with a function for specifying a position is installed in a location to be measured in advance (Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 63-010300).
(5) A method in which a personal handyphone system (PHS) is utilized.
Generally speaking, the method by which the most accurate position is measured is method (4), and the method by which the least accurate position is measured is method (5). Although the format of position information to be measured varies depending on the position measurement method, the position information is expressed by the direction at a certain location and a distance from the location, a device identification ID by which a location can be specified, etc.
There are two kinds of systems in which the position of a moving object is measured using the above-described measurement methods and the position information used: a) a navigation system for moving objects, and b) a position management system for moving objects.
The navigation system for moving objects is a route guiding system which assists a moving object move to a destination. This system comprises a position measurement unit for measuring a current position, road map data which are stored in a storage medium, a map matching unit for matching the measured current position with the road map data, a route plan unit for planning a route to a specific destination and a guidance unit for guiding a user according to the planned route, an output unit for outputting data utilizing a display or synthesized voice, etc.
Since the navigation system has the above-described configuration, the current position of a moving object can be displayed on a screen and the moving object can be guided to a specific destination according to a planned moving route when the moving object moves toward the destination. The navigation systems available for moving objects include a car navigation system, a navigation system which is used in ships, etc.
The position management system for moving objects is a system in which the position of a moving object is managed by another user who is not the moving object itself (in most cases, a position management center) by acquiring the current position of the moving object. This system is comprised of a position measurement unit for measuring a current position, a position information transmitting unit for transmitting the measured position information to a position management center, a position management apparatus for managing the position of the moving object using the transmitted position information, etc.
Examples of such a system include Japanese Application Publication No. 4-117823 xe2x80x9cMoving Object Position Management Apparatus Utilizing a Mobile Communication System and Method thereofxe2x80x9d and Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 9-247730 xe2x80x9cPosition Detection Apparatus and Method thereofxe2x80x9d. The system of the Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 4-117823 is a moving object position management system for measuring the position of a moving object using a GPS and transmitting the measured result in a radio transmission system. The system of the Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 9-247730 detects the position information about a moving object and performs the position management of the moving object by making the moving object (an aged person who has wandered off, etc.) carry both a GPS and a PHS. Such a position management system of moving objects is used to collectively manage the position of company vehicles, such as taxis, express delivery vans, etc., within a certain area, or the position of people, such as salespersons, customer engineers, etc.
The method for collecting the interest information, etc. of a moving object by analyzing the moving situation data of the moving object includes Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 8-137916 xe2x80x9cCustomer Interest Information Collection Method and Apparatus thereofxe2x80x9d. This automatically collects the moving situation of a customer from a store using a transmitting and receiving device, and analyzes such data as customer interest information. The moving situation of the customer is measured by installing a transmitting apparatus for transmitting a different transmitting device identification ID to positions in a store and by having the customer carry a receiving device. The moving situations of the customer are collected as customer interest information related to commodity purchase information, customer attribute information, etc., of the customer.
Generally speaking, since when a moving object visits a location, the moving object moves to the location with a certain purpose in mind and has an intention to perform a specific activity, the visited location is closely related to the activity purpose of the moving object, and the activity is further related to the characteristics (for example, a routine moving pattern, preference, interest, etc.) and the attributes (for example, sex, age, etc.) of the moving object. Therefore, the characteristics and attributes of the moving object can be extracted by measuring the position information of the moving object, and collecting and analyzing the history of visited locations.
Using the above-described technologies, the object of the navigation system is to perform route guidance to a certain destination using both position information obtained by the position measurement unit and map information data. The object of the position management system is for a position management center to monitor and manage the current position of a moving object. Therefore, the navigation system and the position management system alone cannot extract the characteristics of the moving object.
The appratus of the Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 8-137916 measures the movement data of a customer in a store by utilizing distinguishable transmitting devices in the positions in a store and a receiving device carried by the customer, relates the measured data to both the commodity purchase information and customer attribute information, and collects the customer interest information of the customer. However, this apparatus aims to collect customer interest information only in a limited area within a store, and it cannot measure the movement data of the customer outside the store where a transmitting device is not installed. Since the apparatus has no information about outside the store, it cannot operate outside the store.
The present invitation has such a background, and an object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus and method for extracting characteristics, such as preference, a pattern of location visits, etc. of a specific moving object by acquiring the location data of a specific location which the moving object visits, including locations within stores and other locations which the moving object can move to and visit, referencing the data with its situation data, and collecting and analyzing the visit history data of the location. Another object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus and method for extracting a trend of the preference, the pattern of location visits, etc., of a group of moving objects by collecting the location visit history data and extracted characteristics of the group of moving objects from many moving objects and analyzing them. Another object of the present invention is to provide a means for utilizing the extracted characteristic of the moving object.
In order to attain the above-described objects, the system of the present invention is comprised of a visit data acquisition unit for acquiring both the location data which a moving object has visited and the situation data at the time the moving object visited the location, a map information database in which a variety of attribute information of locations are stored, a visit history database in which both the location data and the visit situation data are related and stored, a characteristic extraction unit for extracting the characteristic of the moving object by extracting data from the visit history database and for analyzing the data and an extracted characteristic utilization unit for utilizing the extracted characteristic of the moving object.
According to the above-described configuration, the characteristic of a specific moving object can be extracted. Furthermore, the characteristic of the group of moving objects can be extracted by constructing a visit history database in which the moving object attribute data and the visit data of many moving objects are related and stored, and collecting and analyzing both the visit history data and the extracted characteristics, in order to extract the trend of the preference, the pattern of location visits, etc. relating to a group of moving objects.
The operations of the system of the present invention are as follows. When the location data of a visited location are acquired by utilizing the measured position information of a moving object, the situation data at the time the location was visited are acquired, the location data and situation data are related when visit data acquisition conditions are met, and visit data are acquired by the visit data acquisition unit of the above-described configuration of the present invention. The visit data are stored in the visit history database, and the characteristic of a moving object can be extracted from the visit data which are stored in the visit history database by the characteristic extraction unit. Finally, the extracted characteristic of the moving object can be utilized by the extracted characteristic utilization unit.
A program for the above-described operation of each process unit which is executed by a computer can be stored in an appropriate computer-readable storage medium, such as a portable medium memory, a semiconductor memory, a hard disk, etc.